Indian Vampires: Spliced and Co-opted

Both the (traditionally) pale-looking and blood-consuming undead entities and the name “vampire” used for describing them signify something foreign to the Indian popular imagination. Yet, the entity has had a noticeable and growing presence in Indian popular culture, and keeping the prolonged colonization of India by European countries, such tendencies seem to be justified. Interestingly, not all the vampires from Indian popular culture are of the foreign kind. Rather, Indian horror has developed a tradition of developing vampire figures or desi-vampires that are born in two major ways, namely splicing with an indigenous supernatural entity or a figure widely held as malefic in Indian culture and co-option of mythical figures like Kali or Bhima. This chapter will analyze both of these trends by referring to relevant examples from Indian horror film, popular literature, lore, and iconography.